Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Quote for the Day

"God is dead: But men's natures are such that for thousands of years yet there will perhaps be caves in which his shadow will be seen."

- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history

“God is dead:”

Nietszche believed that the Christian God was no longer a credible source of absolute moral principles, that the “death of God” meant people turning away from belief in Christian and cosmic order. This in turn resulted in the abandonment of the values associated with such belief, from the moral compass that belief in God provided. According to Nietzsche, when people realised this had happened they would despair and nihilism, life without objective meaning or purpose, would take over. This would be a bad thing. The decline of religion, the rise of atheism and the absence of a higher moral authority would plunge the world into chaos.

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”